The disclosed technology is related to live media distribution.
Live media distribution across computer networks has developed as a highly desirable form of providing content to users. Live media content originates from many different sources that often stream the content using network protocols to provide a seamless broadcast of the content at a client device. Although live media content is originally broadcast live, it may remain in a computer network for an extended period of time after its original broadcast. For example, live media may be streamed live and then stored for a short period of time in the system to facilitate personal or digital video recording functions over the network. Additionally, the live content may be stored for longer period of times to enable users to view the content after its original live broadcast.
To provide efficiency, scalability and PVR functionality, many distribution systems rely on chunking and caching between sources of live media and the client devices of users. These systems generally use large cache structures to provide the content to service user requests. Because of the large amounts of data that are generated by live sources, the caches are frequently updated as new content arrives. In many cases, older content is replaced with more recent content. This type of caching often results in potentially sub-optimal content being maintained in the system.